


What Remains

by Match (pachipachi)



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Last Kiss, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 07:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pachipachi/pseuds/Match
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Amon Hen, after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [What Remains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7487157) by [vivian_damor_blok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivian_damor_blok/pseuds/vivian_damor_blok)



It is a smaller death than you expected, quieter than you'd hoped.

What remains, knowing there is no possible world in which you did not choose his body, no possible world in which you did not choose the Ring? It no longer matters if it was worth it, with all that came after, the bloodbruisevomit, seeing the shape of your treachery mirrored in another's eyes. Seeing the Ringbearer's face convulse with fear and go blank in the moment before his body did the same, echoing on the insides of your eyelids.

What remains. What will yet remain.

Nuzzle your face into his hair and breathe out, long and soft. Inhale again the acrid scent of him, pressing close. Lust is a tricky thing. You were never lovers, to learn the shapes of each other's bodies languidly. You who rode patrol in the shadow of Minas Morgul knew the ways of orcs, thought you knew the ways of men. It will not be enough. Though he bound himself to you in blood, night upon night, the blood of Westernesse will not redeem you.

You took him lying side by side in the darkness, quietly. Mossdark panting, stained leggings, his body-smile and shudder of pleasure. The Dunedain trained his eyes to see in the dark like an Elf's. You tell yourself that was how his hand cupped your face faultlessly, his mouth found your lips. Strange, that a king and leader of men should take pleasure in his own submission. You know the way of men with men was never meant to be easy: nothing like rustling a hand up a maid's skirts like some wayward moth. Nothing like that simple comfort. There should have been no tenderness between you, not on this fallow earth so near the Black Lands. It should have been no more than a blind rut. The memory of his kiss seems heavier knowledge than you can bear.

You can't move your legs. _Aragorn, my legs._ Test your shoulders, twigs crackling beneath you in the throe. You were never as quiet as he, never as subtle.

This is what it is to die: grimace and ease into the pain like walking into the ocean. Again taste the clammy salt air of Belfalas Bay. You journeyed there once as a youth, with your brother. Take the first step, then another, stones in your pockets. Waves tongue your chest, balloon the hem of your tunic. There are marvelous things in the depths of the sea. Soon you will name them all.

He kisses your forehead. You think: _too high up._ You wanted to tear your last breath from his lungs, taste his sweat and spittle, half-dried orc-blood at his lips. Wanted to give him your breath, letting it hiss the story of your failure. Your boots lurch over the loose sand at the drop-off, and water washes over your head. Into the sea-dark, pain flowing through you clean as moonlight.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something of an archive fic: I wrote it at some point between the US release dates of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Stylistically, it may be the most pretentious work I have ever posted. I'd apologize, but by the time you read this it'll be too late.


End file.
